


frostbitten

by FancifulRivers



Series: warmth [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Fluff, Gen, Magical Dudley Dursley
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-15
Updated: 2017-12-15
Packaged: 2019-02-15 02:02:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13020900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FancifulRivers/pseuds/FancifulRivers
Summary: While on vacation, Harry makes a new friend.





	frostbitten

Harry Potter stared down at his cousin's hands and frowned in concentration. He could handle sticky hands and stains on clothes. He could handle untied shoelaces and misplaced items (even if that was usually taken out on him at the end of the day).

He didn't know how to handle Dudley's fingers, which were swollen and turning different colours of red and white.

He did know that wasn't supposed to happen, though.

"Can you fix it?" Dudley looked down at him hopefully. Harry bit his lip. If you'd asked him two years ago if he would ever get along with his cousin, he'd have given a resounding 'no.' Dudley was a great fat bully who took great pleasure in taunting him, chasing him, telling off anyone who got too close to him or looked remotely friendly near him, and lied to his parents about what a 'freak' Harry was.

That was, until Dudley did something undeniably freaky himself. 

He couldn't blame it on Harry. Harry had been at Mrs. Figg's house, returning a casserole dish. When he'd come home, Aunt Petunia had whacked him in the head with a serving spoon and told him that his freakiness had contaminated Dudley. Uncle Vernon had glowered and he'd been locked in the cupboard for two weeks, only allowed out for school, chores, the occasional meal, and to use the bathroom.

Dudley wasn't treated like  _Harry_ , of course. Freakiness or not, Dudley was still  _family_. Still their child. Not an unwanted orphan, shoved off on their doorstep because no one else wanted him.  _His_ parents hadn't died in a drunken smash-up.

But the spoiling petered away until it had just...stopped. Oh, Dudley got three meals a day. He got his bedroom (his second bedroom became a proper guest room and when he started to complain, Aunt Petunia gave him that  _look_ she'd developed and he snapped his mouth shut). He got new clothes and he got toys on Christmas and his birthday. Sometimes Petunia and Vernon even told him that they loved him or they were proud of him. But it was all...different. Stilted.

Harry still didn't know how he and Dudley had become reluctant friends.

Perhaps it was because Harry had gained some tiny amount of control over his freakiness. It didn't always work, but it did sometimes. He could stop a plate from smashing on the floor, and he'd somehow managed to grow his hair back after that awful haircut Aunt Petunia gave him, the one where she virtually shaved his head except for a big patch of hair to "cover that nasty scar."

Perhaps it was simply because now, somehow, Harry and Dudley actually had something in common.

Harry had been asked along on this vacation for once. He kind of thought it was because of Dudley. If Dudley did something weird or out of the ordinary, they could blame it on Harry, the criminally negligent freak of a child who would be sent away to St. Brutus's in a few years. Indignation made his ears burn every time he heard their plans. He wasn't a criminal. He couldn't  _help_ the things he did.

But he wished he could now. It was bitterly cold outside, snow kept falling (and had been falling for ages), and they had to stay outside for another- Harry squinted at Dudley's watch- two hours. "Stay out of the way," Aunt Petunia had demanded of both boys, and from the mood she was in, Harry didn't think she would let Dudley go back inside just because his fingers resembled sausages swelled up in their casings.

He held his own hands tightly around Dudley's, but he was just as cold, so he doubted it did much. Dudley had a warmer jacket, but he'd forgotten his gloves and by the time he realised, it was much too late to go back and fetch them. And Harry didn't have any to lend. He would have if he did, he knew the cold affected his cousin more. But his own jacket was thin and patched, bought from a charity shop, and it wouldn't have fit Dudley in any case. Dudley was still a lot bigger.

Shouts from behind him caught his attention and Harry whirled around to see they were no longer alone. A bunch of redheads now played in the snow, shouting and laughing and throwing snowballs at each other. A plump, redheaded woman who had to be their mum sat on a bench watching them, a slight smile playing on her lips.

"Maybe she can help," Dudley suggested through chattering teeth, but Harry balked. Just approach a stranger? Aunt Petunia had drilled it into them both.  _Never talk to strangers._

But Dudley was so cold, and Harry wasn't much better, and maybe- maybe an exception could be made. Harry tried to convince himself of that as he tiptoed toward the woman, Dudley following close behind.

"E-excuse me, ma'am," he stammered out. She looked up from a novel folded in her lap. She had the warmest eyes Harry had ever seen and he wondered if his mum's had looked like that. They were nothing like Aunt Petunia's.

"Yes?" She asked gently.

"Er- I was wondering, erm, well-" Harry pushed Dudley forward, pulling his hands into view. The woman gasped in dismay.

"You poor child," she said. "You look absolutely frozen! Both of you do," she added, with another look at Harry, who flushed brightly and shoved his glasses further up the bridge of his nose.

"He er- he forgot his gloves, and uh, I don't know what to do about his hands," Harry explained in an embarrassed mutter.

"Where are your parents?" She asked and both boys froze.

"They left," Dudley answered, lying. Uncle Vernon had gone, true, but Aunt Petunia was still in the guest lodging. She just didn't want to see their faces until it was time for dinner, and while Harry was adept at sneaking around 4 Privet Drive, a vacation home was a whole different matter.

"Let me see," the woman murmured, gloved hands searching through a multitude of pockets in her coat. Harry fidgeted nervously from foot to foot.

"Would these help, dear?" She asked, holding out two pairs of thick, knitted mittens. Harry's mouth dropped open.

"Boy, would they!" Dudley said enthusiastically, shoving his hands into one pair at once. Harry looked longingly at the other pair.

"They're for you too, dear," the woman said. Harry scratched at his fringe, accidentally revealing the lightning bolt-shaped scar his parents' accident had given him. The woman's eyes widened.

"Does that hurt?" She asked. Harry rubbed the scar in a fit of self-consciousness.

"Not- not often, ma'am," he said. "I got it when I was a baby."

"Yes..." she said, her voice trailing off. "Yes, you would have..." Harry stared at her. What a weird thing to say.

"Here," she said, brandishing the mittens at him. He hesitantly took them, slipping his hands into blissful warmth.

"I- er- thank you, ma'am," he said.

"I'm Molly," she said. "Molly Weasley. We'll be staying round here for a couple days. I'm sure my children would love to have some new playmates."

Harry's eyes darted nervously in the direction of their guest rooms. 

But Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon weren't here. And Molly Weasley had given him mittens and not said nasty things about his scar and she was-

She was  _nice_. 

Harry grinned.

"I'd love that, too," he said.

**Author's Note:**

> I want to write more in this AU, but not a full-length story.
> 
> More like random one-shots.


End file.
